Stages of Madness
by Lu-Br-icant
Summary: AU. "Professor Umbridge, your boobs shine like stars today," Harry said and grabbed one. Meanwhile, Hermione was having a lot of fun with her mortal enemy. That's what you get when a potion goes wrong.


**A/N:**

**Hello, guys,**

**So we are real life friends - Cutiekins and Lurida. We are active in different fandoms (Glee and SVM/True Blood) but once we found out that the other one was also writing fanfiction, which came as a huge shock after months and months of hiding, we decided to try writing a coleborate work for the only fandom we had in common. Hence, this story here.**

**As this is our first try writing together, it would be highly appreciated to hear your opinion. Let us know what you think!**

**Love,**

**Cutiekins and Lurida**

* * *

When someone mentioned Neville Longbottom, people had different images in their heads. For some he was just a clumsy Gryffindor, who had difficulties tying up his shoes. For others he was a boy who entertained everyone during breakfast by getting a Howler from his grandmother every so often. Anyone, who had Herbology with him, knew him as a genius, while professor Sprout called him her best student (not that she played favourites). His friends thought he was a bighearted boy, who had a memory of a Blast-Ended Skrewt. His relatives remembered him as a son of two talented wizards, whose abilities were not inherited by the boy.

However, no matter how people's opinions differed, everyone agreed to one thing - Neville Longbottom couldn't brew a simple Calming Draught even if his life depended on it. After more than four years of being laughed at, Neville decided it was time to show everyone what he was made of and prove that making a potion wasn't an impossible task for him. However things didn't go as smoothly as Neville had hoped even though the draught was brewed correctly. A tiny mistake of leaving the bottle of butterbeer full of the Calming Draught on the nightstand to mature caused some unexpected events that some people would never forget.

* * *

The O.W.L.'s were still far away as far as Ron was concerned. They still had three months and he thought that it was more than enough to prepare for a few tests. For some reason his friend Hermione didn't share the same opinion.

"You have no idea what you are talking about, Ronald Weasley! Now go to your room and bring that stupid book or I swear I'm going to remove your eyebrows and make sure that nothing can bring them back!" she yelled at him while they were doing homework during their free period.

Ron exchanged a scared look with his other friend Harry, whose face expression said that the girl was definitely not joking, and hurried to their room where he kept his textbooks. Cursing under his breath the boy started looking for the Astronomy textbook, still not sure why Hermione needed his book while she could have used her own. After all, she always carried her books around.

"Aha!" the gryffindor shouted victoriously having found the book he needed. If he hurried to come back, he might as well save his eyebrows.

Frankly, Ron felt offended. His eyebrows had nothing to do with his attitude towards studying and Hermione had no right to threaten to do anything to them. It was unfair given that his eyebrows had experienced too much torture during his short life.

First it was Fred, who 'unintentionally' removed them when Ron was five. Their parents said that his older brother couldn't control his abilities but the five-year-old knew better. It was that look in Fred's eyes that told him that it was his revenge for the pumpkin fizz that Ron had eaten a day before. Fortunately, his eyebrows grew back immediately under his mother's cast spell.

A few years later, when he was in his first year at Hogwarts, the trio encountered a real dragon thanks to Hagrid's love for dangerous creatures, which the half-giant found 'adorable, yet able to defend themselves'. During one of their visits Norbert, later known as Norberta, belched after having a whole chicken for dinner, and the fire erupted from the dragon's nostrils. Harry and Hermione were lucky enough to be sitting on the other side of the table while Ron was hit by the fire with its full force. Once again Ron had to temporarily say goodbye to his eyebrows.

In the end of the fourth year the students were learning human transfiguration, which appeared to be more difficult than anything they had learnt so far. Having Harry as a partner seemed to be a better option than their classmate Neville but it wasn't perfect either, especially when the spell didn't go exactly how it should have and Ron ended up having to sit with blue eyebrows until the end of the class when Professor McGonagall took her time to fix everyone's misfortunes.

Needless to say, Ron felt protective of his precious eyebrows now that he knew that having them removed didn't make him look any more handsome while any different colour made his face look, for the lack of a better word, weird. That's why Hermione's threat and Harry's worried look made him hurry to come back to the common room. But even in a hurry there was one thing that made the boy stop.

For a Muggle it would have looked like a simple bottle of lemonade - nothing special. For any wizard it was a bottle of the most delicious drink in the world. For Ron it was a solution to his biggest problem - Hermione. The girl was crazy about the butterbeer and if he got her to drink it, she might relax for a moment and give them a break. It would also save his eyebrows.

The fact that the drink belonged to someone else, made Ron second guess his plan. He stopped for a moment holding the book tightly and looked at the nightstand where the bottle was. If it had belonged to Harry or him, it would have been perfect. If it had been Seamus' or Dean's, it would have been a problem given that Seamus was not on speaking terms with them and Dean, even though a good guy, wasn't a close friend of theirs anyway. Ron considered himself lucky because the drink was on the nightstand that belonged to none other but Neville Longbottom.

Now Ron needed to decide what to do and do that quickly. He had a few options. First, he could just take the bottle and never mention it to Neville. The boy would probably think he had drunk it and had forgotten right away. Second option was to take a drink and later on replace it without another word. Or he could take the drink and leave a note apologising for stealing and promising to buy him another bottle of the drink during the next visit to Hogsmeade. The latter sounded like a good idea so the boy threw the book on Neville's bed and quickly found a quill and a piece of parchment. After scribbling a short note he took the bottle and the book and headed back to the common room, his heart full of hope that Hermione wouldn't fulfil her threat.

"What took you so long?" the girl hissed irritated once she saw Ron approaching. "Did you decide to take a nap while I was here, not able to answer this question? Do you want me to fail all O.W.L.'s?"

"Of course not!" Ron said sitting down further from her. "I couldn't find the book..."

"Then reorganise your stuff because next time you won't be able to find your underwear," she said and grabbed the book from Ron's hands. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some studying to do."

Ron looked at Harry and rolled his eyes. It was a bold thing to do because he had no idea what Hermione would have done if she had seen this action. Thankfully, she was too busy looking through the pages. The red-head took the opportunity to write Harry a note because he was not brave enough to make a noise.

_I have a bottle of the butterbeer under my robe._

He passed the note to Harry, who read it and looked at him with his wide eyes. They exchanged a meaningful look and Harry mustered all his courage to speak.

"Hey, Hermione?"

''What?"

"I think we all deserve a break," he said carefully, ready for the blow, which was obviously about to come.

But it never did because once the girl opened her mouth to speak, Ron put the precious bottle on the table in front of her. "I agree with Harry," he said. "Let's have a drink and then go back to studying, okay?"

Both boys could see that the girl was having a heated inner argument with herself. It was either keeping her head high and declining the tempting offer, or accepting the drink and letting her friends know that she had a weakness, which they could use against her in the future. It was a difficult decision but she knew better than letting the boys win.

"I'm not thirsty," she said much to their surprise, "and I don't have time for a break. You go ahead and be lazy."

Ron didn't hesitate for a second and just grabbed a bottle and started drinking greedily. After drowning about one third of the bottle he shoved it to Harry, who was not reluctant to take it from the boy. After taking a few gulps Harry set the bottle in front of Hermione. As much as she tried to ignore the bottle half-full of divine liquid she couldn't resist the desire to feel a few drops of heaven in her mouth. The girl finally gave in and grabbed the bottle ignoring the giggles coming from the boys. After a few sips she stopped to savour the taste but something was off. She leaned down to smell the drink and despite the similarity between the beverage in the bottle and the butterbeer, they weren't quite the same.

"Hermione, do you want to write letters to our future selves?" Ron asked out of the blue, with Harry chuckling by his side.

That was a bizarre thing to say even for the red-haired boy, who tended to talk nonsense all the time, even in his sleep. And Harry's giggling wasn't a usual behaviour for the boy, who was moody all the time that year.

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked, still eyeing the content of the bottle.

"Do you think my dick is too… bushy?" Harry asked Ron genuinely concerned and emphasised his question, "bushy… bushy!"

Hermione started feeling dizzy and realised that butterbeer wasn't butterbeer at all. They needed some help and the only person she could think of was their least loved Potion professor Snape.

* * *

**A/N:**

So, do you think this story is worth continuing? :)


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